6 September 2009
Send in the clowns
The last few days, the print edition of the Straits Times filled me with despair. Every day, pages and pages were devoted to a book (titled Men in White) that they recently published about the People's Action Party (PAP). More incessant hardsell one could barely imagine. The overkill only served to remind me of the newspaper's decades-long devotion to acting as an apologist for the PAP government, but now in the twilight of Lee Kuan Yew's years, it also comes across as a somewhat desperate attempt to carve in stone the central role of the PAP in the national narrative.
The boast is that this book treats Lee's opponents within the PAP fairly. This is a boast borne of necessity. A new generation of Singaporeans will not bother with any history that does not. But whether that boast is supported by the actual writing, I shall leave it to others, more knowledgeable about history, to assess.
Already though, the excerpts published so far in the Straits Times, suggest that anyone yearning for a more radical reading of history may be disappointed. The book's so-called "fair treatment" may be no more than cosmetic. Yet, the thing about giving an inch is that one can sometimes spy the missing mile.
For example, in the telling of the 1961 split when a faction left to form the Barisan Socialis, the excerpts indicate that those who left did so because they felt extremely uncomfortable with Lee's headlong rush into Malaysia.
What has been revealed is that Lee was convinced that the leftwing of the PAP had pro-communist sympathies, and that they could potentially carry the electorate. Lee didn't feel he was strong enough to stop the leftist tide. Instead he appealed to foreign powers to intervene to save him and his ideals. This was the true motive behind the idea of Malaysia. A radical reading of history could therefore say: This man sold Singapore out in order to stop his opponents from taking Singapore in the direction he disagreed with. In most other countries, such a leader would be called a traitor.
Then, bolstered by the foreign power, Lee launched Operation Coldstore, detaining without trial large numbers of the opposition, in order that they could not impede the consolidation of his (foreign-supported) power, and ending Singapore's brief fling with a two-party system. In most other countries, such a politician would be called unspeakable names.
Karma struck back unusually soon. The foreign power decided it really didn't need Lee and tried instead to take Singapore for itself. It started to undermine Lee by raising the spectre of racial conflict. So Lee was played out. Such a politician is normally lampooned as a fool.
Eventually, to save his own skin, Lee pulled Singapore out of the federation. In effect, the 1961 naysayers in the PAP were proven right when they said the terms of merger were lousy and not acceptable.
So, who was the reckless one who played Russian Roulette with Singapore's future? Bear in mind too, the then Prime Minister of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman, had no interest in the idea of Malaysia; it was Lee who kept selling the idea to him and the British by constantly referring to the communist threat, a threat which, by 1960, had ended. The Malayan Emergency ceased that year, with the remnants of the communist guerillas driven into Southern Thailand.
If Malaya had not expanded into Malaysia, what would the British have done with Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo? Might the British have decided instead to create a bigger Singapore incorporating these territories? If so, might today's Singapore therefore have more strategic space than it now has? In other words, are we worse off now after that reckless and misguided adventure into Malaysia?
In the foregoing, I have deliberate overstated an interpretation of history, playing a kind of devil's advocate to make a point: A truly incisive look at history will require us to conduct an analysis as critical as that. That, to me, is what I would understand by "fair treatment".
However, as most Singaporeans will know, such a critical analysis is not yet possible. For now, however critical a book pretends to be, Lee must emerge a hero, not traitor, fool or &%^*#$@)%(^. At best, we can only be permitted the kind of "fair treatment" the new book, so loudly trumpetted by the Straits Times, displays.
* * * * *
Before any reader gets too carried away by the "traitor" label, consider the opposing argument: Was Singapore even conceived as a viable country then? If it wasn't, how can anyone be called a traitor to a country that did not exist in the minds of his contemporaries?
We cannot use today's terms of reference when reading history.
:p
